


Searching for my Key

by Neubauje



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:11:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neubauje/pseuds/Neubauje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter tells a brief history of his life, though it may be slightly different from the one you know. Just what is he hiding under that mask?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blue Matter

You know how the story starts. A mad scientist harnesses a power which humanity could never hope to fully comprehend. You know it as Bluematter, a simple name for such a complex substance. The stuff is dual in nature- on the one hand, it holds together the very fabric of existence itself. It is capable of much energy and bonding properties, of creating rifts and voids and portals to other dimensions, to the past and future, and even to parallel universes. On the other hand, it seems to have something inherently… human about it. Where its counterpart, Greenmatter, will sap away the emotions and humanity of anything it touches, leaving an empty husk of a person, Bluematter will do the opposite. The almost playful, anthropomorphic material responds to feelings and emotions, amplifying and mimicking them. It is empathic in nature, responsive and immersive. It will wedge its way inside a person and enhance their mind, heart, body, and soul in ways they could never imagine.

Peter Walter used it to create life where there had been only complex machines. The living robots, each quickly learning to have a unique personality by way of their empathic power source, became the stuff of legends. Many competing scientists tried to emulate the Walterbots, so human-like in their many bizarre mannerisms, but failed as they ran against the limits of mere contemporary technology. The singing group became the legacy of our family, whose duty it became to master the art of Bluematter manipulation and the science of robotics to keep the living heirlooms in good condition for centuries to come.

The Bluematter infiltrated our family, a little bit at a time. Here after a generation or two, a child was born with blue hair. There, after another generation, the inherited genius took a leap into the unknown of outer space. Over there, to the side of the family tree, a Walter finds himself lacking eyes on a consistent basis. My father often speculated that his body, so attuned to the Bluematter running in our family for generations on end, had integrated him with small and invisible portals. Where they led to, we were never sure, but they only ever manifested there, under his handsome brows.

“I only have eyes for your mother,” he’d told me once, jokingly. It was an understatement, of course, there would be nights when I would catch him at ease, pouring over his work with fervor as his pupils darted back and forth from chart to chassis. But Peter Walter V was a nervous man, and when he knew there were eyes on him, his own would depart our plane of existence. Only Mother’s soothing presence could coax those little invisible portals to bring them back consistently. They seemed highly attuned to his state of mind, after all. What Father felt, the Bluematter felt.

I wonder if he realized, those long nights down in the lab with Mother and the Bluematter reactor, what the long-term study would do to the next generation. To me, his only son.  
 


	2. Fitting In

My early life was simple enough. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we all lived together in Walter Manor with the robots, and it wasn’t bad. The Jon and the other bots looked after me, for the most part, while Dad kept to his studies and the robotics class he taught in the local college. Mom mostly tended to him, and to her budding collection of lilies in the garden out back. She was determined not to let the estates go to pot, even without enough money to hire a groundskeeper. Between Mom, Aunt Wanda, Uncle Norman, and the occasional short-term housekeeper, things got done well enough.

I got sent to public school, of course. I always stuck out like a sore thumb, catching on to lessons well ahead of the teacher’s pace and in strange leaps and bounds. I had a few friends who would play K’nex with me, and other fads as time passed. Dad approved, but took great care to teach me the real stuff of robotics as soon as I’d come home for the day. With his help, I learned the layouts of first Rabbit’s chassis, then the Spine’s, and finally, after extensive Bluematter training, the Jon climbed up on the work table and we peeked at his void. It terrified me, but I put on a brave face as well as I could. Jon was my best friend; I didn’t want to hurt him with my fear. I studied robotics and programming, making a copy of the most advanced AI in the field for practice. QWERTY grew with the advanced learning programming, and soon became a valuable helper around the house. He became the guardian of the household mainframe, with a massive computing prowess to help keep track of the Walterbots’ programming.  
Just as I started to become more of a man, my father started to become less of one. Puberty kicked in for me, as awkward as any pre-teen. Dad’s dementia started to manifest in little, frustrating ways. I receded into myself as best I could to stay out of the way when Mom couldn’t get Dad to tell her where he’d been the night before, or what he’d spent all our money on. The lessons lessened and I did my best to pick up the slack with Dad’s textbooks and research, as well as independent study of my own.  
I didn’t realize anything was wrong until halfway through sixth grade. Having taken to sitting in the back of the class in those days, I had my head buried in one of Dad’s books while the teacher drabbled on about something simple like conductivity or trigonometry. She called on me, and shrieked as I looked up, clueless. My classmates turned and stared, their faces twisting into shock and grotesque horror.

A quick trip to the bathroom mirror told me that I no longer had a face. Blank flesh stared back at me, with hardly a freckle showing where there should have been wide, frightened eyes and a gaping mouth rounded with a shout. The air passed through invisible orifices. I reached up and could feel no nose with my fingertips, but felt my hand on my own nose.

Needless to say, I was quickly excused from school and didn’t return for another week or two. This was the time it took for Mom to contact a professional woodworker, who was sent measurements and availed us with a desperate measure, for a desperate fee. This sturdy mask was to be my new face.

Nothing was ever the same. Those who had been friendly towards me now avoided me with fear in their eyes. I spent most of the rest of the days in public school alone. Acquaintances would come and go, but they never stuck around for long. This one wanted to make her boyfriend jealous. That one wanted help with his homework. Those ones mistook my hand-me-down dress style, dragged out of boxes in the attic, for that of a richer family, and tried to mooch from my empty wallet.  
When their jobs for me were complete, I was easily disposed of. “Why would I be friends with a freak?” The familiar theme still stung each time, for I could not stop myself from believing that maybe this one would get to know me, maybe this one thought I was funny, maybe this one would stick around.

As I withdrew from the company of the human world, the robots became my constant companions. They, like the rest of the Walter family, understood. Within the Manor, my… facial absence was regarded less like a mutation and more like a family legacy. It was a mark of how much of ourselves the Walters had dedicated to our purpose of science and robotics and the study of Bluematter.

Father had given all of himself, and some of me. I would have to do the same to make it worthwhile.

By the time I assumed control of the house, I hadn’t been outside in months, and the mirrors were the first thing to go. I didn’t need constant reminders of how freakish my appearance was. My hairstyle was simple enough to maintain, and there was nothing else to see. I always wondered if Uncle Norman might have shared this mindset, but I never worked up the courage to ask about it. I rarely talked to anyone besides the Jon. My father was barely coherent by this point, and had long since stopped teaching. Our sole sources of income now lay in the revenue gained from the robots' musical tours, and the invention, production, and manufacture of new pieces of technology to sell to the hungry public. Many of my devices went over well in the scientific community, and I corresponded eagerly with my peers and contemporaries. Perhaps these men of knowledge, of science and illumination and intellect, could see past the mask and into the brain hidden beyond?

I leapt at my first invitation to a robotics conference as the new representative of Walter Robotics. Not even Becile had a sneer to spare for me that first time I walked amongst them, an unknown entity shrouded in mystery and hidden from view. Fortunately, the adult world proved far less cruel than that of public school, and the odd stares eventually melted away as I gave my prepared presentation on some of the more modern applications of Bluematter and the ionic engine. Glassy-eyed stares turned from my mask to my work, and it was all I could have ever hoped for.


	3. The Accident

Life continued normally for another couple of years. Mostly isolated, but with enough outside contact to keep us all sustained. I kept an eye on the portal, greeted curious visitors to see the Walterbots, and furthered my study of engineering and Bluematter. Things were good until The Jon’s wanderlust began to kick in again, fostered by his growing shortage of Crystal Pepsi. He’d been able to locate a stream in Kazooland whose waters emulated the carbonated beverage closely enough to keep him running indefinitely, and his built-in mastery of the void and the portal ensured that he would always be able to return home if he ever needed me for anything. Or vice versa.

With hardly a day’s notice, Jon was gone. Just like that. He was still my best friend, and I knew he would be back eventually, but his departure left a gaping hole in our touring act, which we needed to keep us afloat. We would have to find a replacement. Consulting with the remaining family members, we scoured the old vaults full of spare robots, all out of commission from the days when the manor was lively and bustling. The Walter Robotics industry had been strong and healthy back then, the leader in the field with many backers and investors. After the Becile lawsuits stripped the family dry, they’d had to sell or decommission all but the most essential crew.

We checked in on the conditions of several inactive bots, but most were in a fairly poor state of disrepair, too far gone for our limited resources to restore. After a pause of hesitation, Wanda nominated an old robot with an advanced portal technology which had never been quite perfected. He’d served in WWI, but had been locked away in a partially-conscious state shortly thereafter when his Bluematter began to spiral out of control.

I consulted our materials and budget, and took a peek at the bronze bot to assess his condition. He peered back with dim optics, flickering in the light of day. Rust was minimal, joints seemed good, and with just a little bit of upgrading, he seemed like he could serve our purpose well enough. The repair of his core-and-portal setup into a state of stability, on my own with no guidance, that would be my true coming of age. This would be my most daunting challenge yet.

Things were going well as I pulled the old robot, who seemed to call himself Hatchworth, into the workshop to study with the more highly-advanced Bluematter machinery. The problem was a complicated one; it would need better connections and routing into the main processing unit to give Hatchworth more direct control over the portal and its activity. Many of his wires were out of date and would also need updated to our new mixture of nickel-cobalt wiring for better efficiency. With careful rerouting of power and monitoring of the unstable portal, I slowly began the conversion and integration.

As is wont to do in this Manor, the situation quickly spiraled out of control. One stupid mistake on my part sent the powerful Bluematter running on a feedback loop through Hatchworth’s circuits, and before I’d even realized completely what had happened, the workshop was once again consumed in an enormous explosion. Reality was rent in two, the fabric of it stretching around me until I could see the very threads of existence and the spaces between them, and how they bent and curved and coiled around each other and around everything. My body was no more, lost to the incredible power of the void between the dimensions, and I almost swore I could see Jon’s hot dog and koi on the other side. As I dissolved from toe to head, losing my grip on the fabric of the universe, the process reached the edges of the Bluematter integrated in my face and pulled me back from the brink. Rending searing pain through my skin, it slowly evened out into the rest of my body, past my shoulders and hips and shins until my feet touched down on solid ground and the rest of the Manor materialized around me.


	4. Back to "Normal"

I awoke in darkness, with a dull throbbing pain surrounding the edges of my not-face. A quick investigation revealed bandages wrapped loosely around my head, and a gentle hand on my other arm kept me from getting up. “Stay and rest,” a familiar voice told me. It was my mother. Her old wartime nursing expertise, usually utilized for my vegetable of a father, had now been turned to me. It was the first time we’d spoken in months.

“How bad is the damage?” I inquired weakly, my voice hoarse from not having used it in… how long? “And how long have I been out?”

“The basement was damaged pretty badly again, nothing some remodeling can’t fix,” she offered softly, “And Hatchworth survived just fine. He’s still the same as before, so we put him back in the vault for the past couple days. As for you, it looks like some of the blue-matter radiation has seeped into these open wounds…” I could feel a feather-soft finger tracing along the bandages, indicating where my skin ached and throbbed with my own pulse. “But it could have been a lot worse. We almost lost you.”

A small weight settled on my chest, moving a little with a gentle, almost silent vibration. I reached with my free hand and discovered something soft and warm, which produced an odd mewling noise. “That kitten is one of the more normal things that came out of the explosion,” Annie explained to me, “He was cute, so we decided to keep him. The giant badgers and the train made of cheese we managed to get back into the portal. Hopefully nothing else shows up.”

Eventually, time healed my new wounds into stark blue scars which protruded from the edges of my mask, and the constant ache dulled away until only the occasional flare-up of anger, stress, or anxiety would trigger the scars into itching or hurting again. My mind emerged from the accident with broadened understanding of the fabric of the void and its connection to portals such as the one housed in Hatchworth’s chassis. I pulled the poor thing back out of his infernal captivity and now was quickly able to get him fixed up and stable. His portal was now fully under his control, no longer leaking radiation or dangerous to those around him.

The small white kitten became known as Marshmallow, and though the odd Bluematter miracle cat didn’t seem to need to eat, he grew quickly in our care… and didn’t stop growing. By the time three months had passed since the explosion, Marshmallow was the size of a large dog. Another six months, and he was more the size of an elephant. It was lucky for us that this strange life form seemed to have been put on metabolic hold from the effects of the blast, since accommodating such large-scale bodily functions would have cost the family quite a lot indeed. But the giant cat provided yet another attraction to bring guests to the Manor, and he also made for a soft and welcoming companion, and with extensive training, a unique mount. We found a place for him in the family, and he quickly adapted to the strange way of life around the robots.

Hatchworth, in the meantime, was concurrently expanding his programming at a rapid pace. Exposed to more interaction with Rabbit and the Spine and the rest of our family, his Bluematter quickly taught him more human mannerisms than what he’d had before going into the vault. While he kept his long-time interest in sandwichcraft, the stovetop automaton began to rely less and less on the hatch-enclosed portal and more on conventional cooking techniques. I think this drive was fueled by a sort of secret desire to be more human, which I’m sure he must have picked up from his older “brother,” but the bronze bot always denied it in favor of the excuse of keeping radiation to a minimum. When he’d found a place in the family, we introduced the musical programming into his code, and he slowly began the long adaptation to join the band. The practice sessions between the three of them and our accompanying humans were rough at first, as Hatchworth learned his instrument and fine-tuned his motor control on the fretboard, but soon enough he seemed to be able to keep up with the rest of the band, and I was able to resume the bookings for Steam Powered Giraffe.


	5. Some helpful and crudely-drawn illustrations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some visual explanation of my headcanon for Peter VI

  
I was trying to get a bit of a visual down for how my headcanon Peter’s face would work. His facial features would all fade in and out independent of each other, and their presence would be dependent upon his mood at the time. The more intensely negative his feelings are, the less face and more scars he has. These extremes can go all the way from looking almost normal around someone he greatly trusts, to being an eerily smooth and flat surface with no facial contours or structure or freckles or even blush, just completely riddled with brightly-glowing blue scars. That would be when he’s especially scared or in pain or panicked. Sudden transitions in mood can cause the face to blink out of existence so quickly that it has been known to create a small popsound.

The itching or pain that occasionally will crop up in the scars would be Peter’s only indication of when he is probably blank, otherwise it’s a pretty big mystery to him that is usually covered up by the mask anyway. He gave up on using mirrors to check and see after they all eventually just showed the blank canvas every time. Mirrors and cameras automatically trigger his self-consciousness nowadays.

The only hope he really has of ever seeing his own face again would be if someone (someone really close to him, like a significant other) were able to capture it on film while he was sleeping. Or if someone drew it from memory. And yes, I like to give my Peter a goatee. I like to think that either A. He doesn’t bother with shaving anymore and that just happens to be the only facial hair that really grows in for him, or B. even though nobody ever sees it, he still fashions himself a little bit after his role model, Pappy Walter I with little touches like the goatee.

Pardon the inability to actually draw facial features or clothing, this is just concept art that hopefully gets the concept across.

  
In my headcanon, Petey can drink out of a straw, but does have to tip his mask up a little in order to actually get any food in. He can eat while his mouth isn't present, but usually it will bother to make an appearance for the occasion.

  
When especially nervous or anxious, Peter might start scratching at his scars without even realizing he's doing it. This only agitates them more, creating a self-perpetuating cycle until they are glowing blue and aching and he winds up at the end of the day with a giant ice pack on his not-face.


End file.
